


Til You Know What You Want

by Dee_Laundry



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-01
Updated: 2009-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dee_Laundry/pseuds/Dee_Laundry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>House is finding his way in a life that's become something different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Til You Know What You Want

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through episode 6-5. Completed for [Come As You're Not 2009](http://karaokegal.livejournal.com/685209.html). Thank you to Early Readers for the beta. Title is from [these lyrics](http://www.rhapsody.com/joe-jackson/the-best-of-joe-jackson-the-millennium-collection/you-cant-get-what-you-want-till-you-know-what-you-want/lyrics.html) by Joe Jackson; summary inspired by [](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**pwcorgigirl**](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/).

There isn't a night with a woman he's known since she was just out of being a girl; there isn't a morning of sex; there isn't a lipstick case to carry as a good-luck charm.

There is Mayfield.

There are several weeks after Mayfield, cooped up with a best friend _cum_ chaperone, doing nothing much but waiting for life to start again.

There is life starting again.

There are a couple of years in which a baby learns to talk and walk, not necessarily in that order, and he learns... nothing much new. There are some interesting puzzles to solve, and some boring busywork to avoid, and some distractions that keep him from hallucinating again just for the hell of it.

"This is good," Wilson says. "You're doing good."

He wonders if Wilson means _well_, or _good_, or both. Or neither. It's Wilson, after all. There are days when you can't believe "Hello" if that's what comes out of Wilson's mouth.

(There are days when he is scared that Wilson will leave again, gone for good, dead or sick or simply sick of House's shit. He doesn't like those days, but Wilson stays blissfully unaware and shows up later when House is feeling better (not good or well but better), and House lets him have it with both barrels. Wilson either gets hurt or angry, but always in the middle somewhere Wilson says, "I can't believe I love you, you stupid shit," and House knows Wilson will stay.)

And then, there is a moment.

In Cuddy's office, at the end of a work day, both of them sitting on her couch (a new one, not quite broken in). He'd come in to complain that a patient has been unutterably stupid, and for once, Cuddy agreed with him immediately. To fill the empty time that would've been taken with arguing, she tells him a story about a professor they both knew of back at Michigan.

"In disgrace," she says, "for writing bondage porn and distributing it on the internet."

"Pssh," he says. "He's an academic. Re-title it with five syllable words and a bullshit introduction linking it to evolutionary psychology, and it's grant material."

"Except," she says, eyes shining with triumph, "he's not an academic anymore."

He raises an eyebrow, and she laughs.

"He's a local politician who focuses on 'family values' issues and the need to have more godliness in government."

His shoulders brush hers when he laughs, and her laughter bubbles into giggles, and her eyes sparkle, lips and cheeks curved, and then he's kissing her.

It's gentle, fun, joyous. The skin on her jaw is soft under the pad of his thumb.

She pulls back and looks away. "Rachel's nanny is expecting me. I have to pack up and go."

"Can I take you to dinner Friday night?" he asks, because he's changed. A little.

"Yes," she says, in a breathy, starry kind of voice, because she hasn't changed.

On Friday he shows up shaven and be-tied at her door at eight. She's gorgeous. He doesn't know how evening makeup works as opposed to day makeup, but it's very, very obvious that she does. "Radiant" might be a word he'd use, if he used words like that. He hasn't changed entirely.

It's awkward. The date. It's blackmail-date awkward.

"Well," she says as they're standing on her front step, "that was awkward. Almost as bad as the dinner I had with Wilson when I was considering asking him to be a sperm donor."

He doesn't generally care if a feeling is "just him" (the fact that he's had it is enough to justify its existence), but in this particular case, Cuddy sharing the same impression relaxes him a fraction. "Why didn't you?" he asks.

"Ask him to be a sperm donor?" Cuddy tilts her head and bites her lower lip for a second. "He... I thought he probably would want to be more involved than I was prepared to allow."

House nods. "Safe bet. Well, you don't have to worry about that with me. I barely want to be involved with _you_."

Smiling, amused, she throws back, "If I believed that was true, I wouldn't have come out with you tonight."

The good-night kiss is pretty damn good, and House goes home in a light mood.

There is a second date, and a third.

Cuddy promotes Hibbert from Orthopedics to Assistant Dean of Medicine, and puts the Diagnostics Department under him. "Because sleeping with someone two levels down is so much more ethical than sleeping with someone one level down," House says to Cuddy on the way to lunch.

"Actually, according to this hospital's employee regulations and my contract, it is." Cuddy's smirk is a thing of beauty as she peels off toward the pediatrics wing for a donor meeting. House continues on to the cafeteria.

Hibbert is... well, _jolly_ is the best word to describe him, although he manages to be so in a mostly non-annoying way. Maybe it's the core of solid flint decisiveness. "No," Hibbert says, more than once, with a smile that's both warm and resolute.

"You don't --" House replies, and is appalled to find himself being unobtrusively herded toward Hibbert's door.

"Bring in documentable evidence that what you want to do helps your patient in addition to satisfying your curiosity, and we'll re-evaluate." The clap on the back is so hearty as to be disgusting. "I look forward to telling you yes."

It's a platitude, a smokescreen, a "consensus-building" win-friends-and-influence-people buzzword phrase, and... House believes him. He really is looking forward to telling House yes.

Wilson tries to keep his smile small when House bitches about Hibbert, but House can see the indent of a dimple. Loser.

There is a fourth date with Cuddy, and a fifth. There's a night spent together while Rachel is staying with her grandmother, a night when House decides the name "Lisa" is better suited for gasping.

A few weeks later, there's another moment. House is watching Cuddy brush Rachel's hair (his tongue is comfortable with Lisa but his brain still calls up Cuddy), and Cuddy asks him to pass her the grip bow barrette, and _he knows what a grip bow barrette is_, and he decides he has to be honest.

"I don't want this."

Cuddy looks at him with surprise. "You think the oval would work better?"

"This," he says, with a vague gesture, because now Rachel's looking at him too.

The left corner of Cuddy's mouth quirks up, and she beckons for the grip bow barrette. It can't leave House's fingers fast enough. A secure _clip_ and a pat to the back, and Rachel's off down the hall for a gleefully accepted bonus ten minutes of television.

Cuddy turns her attention to the closet, re-arranging hangers, tidying up. She's not making him look at her; she's backing off to give him space. When did she learn to do that?

"I," he says before stopping, but it's a small closet, only so much to tidy. After a deep breath, he lets it out, "Rachel's your kid. I don't want to play daddy."

"I know," Cuddy says. There's no surprise in her voice... and no hurt. No resignation, or disappointment, or any emotion he'd expected.

"And you're OK with that? You're not hoping for the two-point-five kids, family-portrait Christmas cards, me walking her down the aisle thing?"

Now she looks at him, eyes smiling. "We're Jewish, so no Christmas cards, and I plan on walking her down the aisle whether with a father or not. But no, I'm not hoping for that kind of relationship with you."

He raises an eyebrow in skepticism; her eyes sparkle. "I _did_ hope for that," she confesses. "A long time ago, when I first adopted Rachel. But... things changed. You changed. And I realized I had to change my expectations, for everyone's benefit."

"You don't want a father figure for Rachel?"

"Oh, I do." Closet clean, Cuddy moves on to the dresser, rearranging trinkets, putting things back in drawers. "But slotting you into that position, or anyone who isn't actively volunteering, is dumb. Unfair to Rachel. True fathers love their children; they don't feel put upon to pretend." Cuddy turns to him and leans back against the dresser. She's still smiling.

She's still happy.

He's having some difficulty believing this conversation is really happening.

"When it comes to Rachel," Cuddy continues, "all I expect of you is to be nice to her. Greet her when you see her; listen when she talks to you; don't put her down or dismiss her. And you have more than met my expectation."

Seriously?

Lisa's hand slips up onto his shoulder. "We're good, House." She presses a kiss to his lips, warm and tender, and then walks out of the room.

He has followed her out, brain whirring with possibilities and analysis and withholding of confidence, and started, "You really --" when the doorbell rings.

"Uncle Robbie!" Rachel yells in delight, and gallops past House toward the front door.

Chase and Cameron are on the porch, radiant smiles everywhere, and there's the ceremonial handing-over of the booster seat for the car, and extracted promises of not _too_ much ice cream, and a hug for Cuddy and a wave for House, and then he's alone with a beautiful, sexy woman.

"Chase?" House asks. "You picked Chase for her father figure?"

"He volunteered." This kiss is past warm, way past it, and the afternoon only gets hotter.

There are more afternoons like that, and evenings, and some mornings as well.

There's the rest of his life, which is nothing like he'd ever imagined. And he doesn't mind that one bit.


End file.
